My grandmother liked to gamble. We would go to Atlantic City sometimes and sit together at the blackjack tables while she smoked and patiently explained strategy to me. It was fun to be doing something she enjoyed, fun to go out to dinner and eat the pickled tomatoes that came to the table with the menus, but I didn’t care…
A major new resource, based on extensive research and contributions from social workers and families across the UK, could change the way contact between adopted children and their birth relatives is handled. The Contact after Adoption website, a partnership between the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Research in Practice, follows comments by senior judge Lord Justice McFarlane, who questioned…
There are very serious questions raised by your article (Rising adoptions penalise poor families but don’t cut numbers in care, says report, 19 January). The implications suggest a link between increasing levels of poverty and increasing numbers of children being adopted without the consent of their parents. By coincidence, the issues were discussed last week at our Research Advisory Group, which…
“We don’t say the A-word here anymore,” a social worker once told me when I dared to ask why there are hardly any adoptions in Australia. But, with our foster care system in crisis, it’s time to talk about an alternative option for the increasing number of children removed from their home due to abuse or neglect. Adoption is so…
Rosalind Powell, with her husband, Harry, adopted 14-year-old Gabriel when he was two*. 1. Know your limits. Embarking on the adoption process is exciting, scary, intense and emotional. Most of the children up for adoption have been taken away from their birth parents and come through the care system, having possibly experienced abuse or neglect. You will hear stories that…
Ilona, 20, came to Britain from Hungary two years ago to make a better life for herself, and has worked as a hotel chambermaid. An attempt to get a late abortion brought her to the attention of children’s social services. She told social workers that she and her partner did not have the financial means to look after their daughter…